the clash of finance and marketing
With tarrifs looming, financial savings desired, and workforce reductions incoming, in the last two weeks I’ve successfully had “justify your existence,” conversation’s with a few CFO’s, and I came up against an issue I’ve experienced throughout my career. these are conversations worth expounding upon: economics vs humanity, balancing budgets with people, and the business value of marketing, brand and creativity.
It happens like clockwork. The economy dips. Profits stall. Leadership calls a meeting. Then come the cuts. And almost every time, the red pen finds its way to the same departments first:
Marketing. Creative. Brand. Content.
People who craft the story. Build the reputation. Shape demand. Gone in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” But why? Why is it that the teams responsible for making people want the product are treated as expendable the moment things get tight? To understand that, we need to look at the business psyche—and the invisible math driving these decisions.
I wrote this article as a guide explain why cutting marketing, brand, or creative first is a bad decision when consumers will be more discerning with where and how they spend their dollars. So lets have this conversation shall we?
The Classic Boardroom Standoff
You’re a marketer or creative, and you’ve just poured your heart into a new, bold, breakthrough brand or product campaign. It’s witty, emotional, unforgettable, and culturally relevant. It has components of education, fun, user expereince, intrigue, and various forms of direct engagement. You just know it’s going to move hearts and drive demand. You can feel the magic and so will your consumers.
And then—WHAM! In slides the finance team with a spreadsheet. They lean in, brows furrowed, and say:
“Looks great. But what’s the ROI? Can we tie this to a pipeline? Where’s the conversion data? How do we justify this spend?”
Cue the sighs. The tension. The misalignment.
Sound familiar? If you’ve worked long enough in marketing or creative, you’ve probably wrestled with this divide.
The CFO vs CMO. Budget vs brand. Precision vs perception. Logic vs magic. Spreadsheets vs storyboards. CAC vs content.
It’s a tug-of-war that stretches across budgets, boardrooms, and belief systems. But this isn’t a turf war. It’s a misunderstanding—a philosophical one.
This is a misunderstanding of worldview. It’s not a battle of right vs wrong. It’s a dance of what vs why. And it’s costing businesses billions in missed opportunities. To win in today’s market, both sides have to hear each other out—because business is both science and soul.
Why Finance Thinks Marketing Is a “Nice-to-Have”
When the economy tightens, layoffs loom, or margins thin, the same departments end up on the chopping block:
Marketing
Brand
Creative
Why? Because these disciplines are too often seen as “soft.” Not essential. Not measurable. Not mission-critical. As nice-to-have instead of need-to-survive.
To a CFO, creative work doesn’t look like a necessity. Beautiful, but dispensable.
Finance thinks:
“If it doesn’t show up in a model, it doesn’t matter.”
“Marketing is the frosting, not the foundation.”
“If we cut the ad spend, we’ll save money immediately.”
And to a spreadsheet, that’s true.
But here’s the flaw in that logic: spreadsheets don’t understand consumers, and it assumes that demand already exists.
The “Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills” Fallacy
In many companies, there’s a deeply ingrained bias:
Operations = necessary
Finance = sacred
Sales = revenue
Engineering/Product = innovation
Marketing & Creative = … optional?
The language betrays the logic. Marketing is often labeled a “cost center,” while sales is a “revenue driver.” Creative work is seen as intangible, hard to measure, even “fluffy.”
When the pressure is on, decision-makers look for clear, measurable savings—and marketing is often the least defended line item.
Because if you can’t prove the ROI fast enough, you’re seen as an expense.
Even if you’re the reason the brand exists in the first place.
The CFO’s Logic (And Why It’s Flawed)
From a finance perspective, this is how it looks:
Creative campaigns don’t generate immediate, trackable revenue
Brand spend can take years to pay off
Cutting an ad agency contract tomorrow saves real dollars today
So, when it’s time to preserve cash flow, out goes the campaign. Down goes the social team. Pause that rebrand. Kill the video budget. On paper? Logical. In reality? Short-sighted. Because brand equity, customer trust, cultural relevance—these are long-term growth engines. When you cut creative, you’re not saving money. You’re mortgaging your future for a short-term Band-Aid.
The (Flawed) Economic View of the World
At the root of the misunderstanding is the very foundation of classical economics.
Classical economics—what most finance teams are trained in—relies on a tidy set of big assumptions:
Demand already exists—and business exists to meet it.
People know exactly what they want.
People act rationally to maximize their utility.
People want to get what they need as easily and cheaply as possible—the lowest prices always wins.
But real life? Real customers?
They’re a lot messier than that.
example: Ice Cream and Irrationality
Imagine this: You’re at the beach with your family on a sweltering day. You brought ice water. Everyone’s hydrated. No one “needs” anything. All good.
Then you pass an ice cream vendor. Suddenly—BOOM—your kids are begging for ice cream cones and popsicles. Demand appeared out of thin air. Why?
Because it was hot. Because it looked fun. Because humans are not spreadsheets. Right place, right time, right message, right product, right context.
Did demand exist before? Not really.
Was it activated by context, emotion, and environment? Absolutely.
This isn’t a bug in the system. It is the system.
Emotion. Context. Experience. Economists call this “demand shock.” Marketers and creatives know it as their job description. We don’t always invent demand out of thin air—but we awaken it. We amplify it. We redirect it.
Marketing doesn’t just respond to need—it reframes what’s needed.
But Wait—Doesn’t Marketing Create Demand?
Exactly.
Marketing isn’t just a megaphone for products that people already want.
It’s how demand is discovered, nurtured, and ignited.
You don’t just sell shoes—you sell belonging.
You don’t just launch a phone—you launch status.
You don’t just offer a service—you offer a story.
And story is what sticks when logic and pricing fail.
The most resilient brands aren’t the cheapest. They’re the most felt.
And the departments that build that feeling?
They’re the ones most businesses let go right before they need them most.
people buy meaning, not just utility
If humans were purely rational, farmer’s markets wouldn’t exist. We’d all be shopping at Walmart for the cheapest tomatoes. But we don’t. Why? Because we like stories. Conversations. Surprises. We want meaning, not just price. Want proof?
Let’s talk wine. On a normal Wednesday, someone buys a $12.99 bottle. But on an anniversary? They drop $44.99—same store, same shelf, similar bottle, different moment.
Are they buying better flavor? Not necessarily. They’re buying meaning. The bottle says: “This moment matters.”
Same goes for champagne. You could create a high-quality $9.99 bottle—but if it feels cheap, it fails. Why? Because champagne isn’t just about taste—it’s about signaling generosity, hospitality, celebration, and class.
Some goods must feel expensive to do their job. That’s not irrational. That’s human. Marketing and brand are what communicate feeling and meaning before and after the sale, alongside product awareness and education during it.
History Keeps Repeating Itself
We saw this during the dot-com bust. We saw it in 2008. We saw it during COVID. And we’re seeing it again now.
Creative professionals, from Video Games to CPG, are often the canaries in the coal mine—first to be let go, last to be hired back. And yet, after each downturn, guess who companies scramble to rehire?
The storytellers. The strategists. The brand builders.
Because the moment the market returns, they realize: “We are invisible. We have no voice, no presence, no pipeline. Other companies have been talking to our consumers every day, so they trust them more. We need marketing.”
The “Too Good to Be True” Paradox
Let’s say you’re buying a phone. You find two:
Phone A: Great camera, long battery life, sleek design, $399
Phone B: Slightly worse specs, $599
Here’s a paradox: To an economist, it’s obvious: Phone A wins. Highest utility, more value, lower price.
But to a humans who generally assume “you get what you pay for”: “Why is the better one cheaper?” “That’s suspicious.” “What’s the catch?” “Am I missing something?”
Now they’re confused—So what happens? Maybe they buy neither.
Because humans don’t just think—they second-guess what others are thinking. This is second-order thinking and it breaks models: we don’t just evaluate products—we try to guess what other people know that we don’t. We assume price signals quality. And if the signal’s off, we hesitate.
Marketing exists to fill this gap and helps resolve that hesitation. It helps things make sense of the irrational with meaning, story, emotion, and trust.
The Real Role of Marketing
Marketing isn’t frosting. It’s the yeast that makes the dough rise. It doesn’t just tell people where to buy. It tells them why it matters. It doesn’t just capture value—it creates it.
Marketing:
Brings awarness and educates
Activates desire
Frames perception
Shapes value
Signals quality
Builds trust
Creates demand pathways before spreadsheets can even see them
It is, in many ways, the human science of knowing where economics falls short.
What Businesses Should Do Instead
Instead of cutting creativity, businesses should double down on it—strategically. Here’s how:
Refocus, don’t eliminate. Shift spend to high-impact, measurable campaigns.
Invest in brand resilience. It’s cheaper to maintain trust than to rebuild it.
Bridge the language gap. Empower marketing teams to speak in business terms—customer acquisition, retention, CAC:LTV ratios.
Measure what matters. Use blended metrics (emotional engagement + sales lift) to show the real value of brand and creative.
Because when the dust settles, people remember how you made them feel—not how many heads you saved on a spreadsheet.
So How do we Fix the Divide?
The answer is not for marketing to become finance. And it’s not for finance to start speaking in hashtags. It’s to align. Here’s how:
For Finance & Strategy Leaders
Honor the Unmeasurable. Not everything that matters fits in a short-term spreadsheet. View brand as an asset, not just a cost
Understand Emotional ROI. Great brands build loyalty, trust, and pricing power.
Ask “What Changed?” “What shifted in behavior?” not just “What Cost?” Look at lift, resonance, and long-tail value.
For Marketing, Brand, & Creative Leaders:
Bring Data to the Dance. Show patterns, lift, long-term brand equity, and share of voice. Respect the need for accountability—measure what you can, and explain what you can’t
Tell Human Stories with Business Outcomes. Show how campaigns shifted perception and behavior. Use emotional insight, but tie it back to outcomes (loyalty, pricing power, retention)
Speak in the language of business. Outcomes, not just outputs and ideas. Don’t say “we made a video.” Say “we increased brand recall by 22%, which increases consideration, trust and conversion chances by the same percentage”
Marketing and creativity are not luxuries. They are leverage. Multipliers. Differentiators.
In a downturn, you don’t cut the parts of your business that communicates, creates emotional connection, and forms consumer behavior—you fortify them. Because the businesses that survive tough times aren’t just the ones who cut fastest.
They’re the ones who remember: People don’t buy the cheapest thing. They buy the one they believe in.
And belief is built by brand. By storytelling. By creativity. Cut that? You’re not just trimming fat. You’re cutting muscle. You want to be the brand that consumers sacrifice other products for, you will not be able to do that without your marketing team.
The Business of Belief: Logic + Magic = Impact
We need finance. We need marketing. We need people who read models, and people who read moods. We need systems thinkers and storytellers.
Because the businesses that win, and thrive, know. They know that emotion drives motion. They know that the brand is the business. And they build systems where both sides don’t just coexist—they collaborate.
At the heart of it, Marketing is the human science of knowing where economics falls short. It doesn’t just serve demand—it creates it. You can’t spreadsheet your way to brand love. You can’t model your way into cultural relevance. But you can combine the rigor of numbers with the magic of meaning.
So no, you can’t spreadsheet a feeling. Let’s stop the turf war. Let’s get out of our silos. Let’s remember:
Finance tells us how well the engine is running.
Marketing decides where we’re going—and why anyone should care.
But ignore it? And the numbers will eventually feel that too.
Share this with your CFO, your CMO, or your CEO. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll stop fighting over who gets the last slice of budget—and start building something unforgettable.
